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Why does it seem that so many of John Wyma’s lobbying contracts seem to end up this way?
State school officials, with the apparent blessing of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, approved a $45 million contract with a politically connected school testing firm despite the company having problems in other states.In September 2004, the Illinois State Board of Education OK’d the four-year contract with Harcourt Assessment Inc., even though the Texas-based company had experienced well-publicized testing miscues in Hawaii, Georgia and Nevada.
On Thursday, Illinois school chief Randy Dunn said he plans to recommend canceling the state’s contract with Harcourt because of widespread troubles with the company’s distribution of the Illinois Standards Achievement Test.
“This vendor is going to be out of a contract in a few weeks if they don’t fix the problem and fix it right away,” said Dunn. “We aren’t going to tolerate this.”
In Chicago, officials said 30 percent of schools didn’t have test materials yet, so testing at many elementary schools will be postponed until March 20. Principals who received materials this week have the option to test Monday, said Xavier Botana, CPS director of assessment and accountability.In a letter to Dunn on Thursday, Harcourt president and CEO Pat Tierney confessed to the widespread problems. “Most districts whose testing starts next week and the week of March 20 are just receiving test materials this week,” Tierney wrote.
Dunn said that not only did Harcourt’s materials fail to arrive on time to most districts, but many test booklets and answer sheets that were delivered were rife with misprints, pages out of order and missing or duplicated sections in reading, math or science.
“Some of these issues have just been stunning. There is no explanation, no rhyme or reason to it,” Dunn said.
posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Mar 10, 06 @ 7:21 am
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Why does this administration insist on so many out of state contracts anyhow? What happened to trying to favor in-state vendors? Wasn’t there some law passed that in-state vendors get preference? That would give us better oversight and more responsive service, and the money the state spends would get spent right in this state, instead of Texas, California, or New York.
Comment by number two pencil Friday, Mar 10, 06 @ 7:36 am
This time, pay-to-play politics has serious implications. These tests are what give school districts criteria to pass the “No Child Left Behind” requirements…and it looks like Harcourt pulled an all-nighter trying to finish the contract in time. I got better results on my high school essay!
Materials were supposed to be available weeks ago, and I know of more than one district in the Metro East that has not received their materials YET!
(By the way, the State Journal-Register online story interviews Gidwitz (former ISBE Chair) and he had some interesting comments. I don’t know how to post a link without cutting and pasting, maybe someone else could.)
Comment by Darrell Democrat Friday, Mar 10, 06 @ 8:03 am
It is all about money. Follow the trail. Get rid of the cash and we get rid of most of our problems. RGod is a political hack, just like George Ryan, been at the public trough for years sucking the taxpayer teat. Both democrats and republicans have choices this year of qualified outsiders. Hopefully voters will be wise enough to chose them.
Comment by Paul Powell Friday, Mar 10, 06 @ 8:04 am
Rich, how ’bout a link to the old post where you asked readers what Rod Blagojevich needed to do to turn his administration around, just so we can remind ourselves how many folks warned him to cut ties with John Wyma and Tony Rezko?
Does the Governor have an albatross around his neck, or is the albatross wearing him?
Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Friday, Mar 10, 06 @ 8:08 am
BTW, the State Journal Register has the best quote on this:
But districts across the state may be forced to change their test schedules because the exams did not arrive on time, Dunn said. In other cases, districts were shipped exams that were incomplete, contained duplications and - in one instance - were practice tests, not the ones used for evaluations. When the company supplied a toll-free telephone number for districts to call if they had concerns, the number was wrong, Dunn said. (emphasis added)
Harcourt should, at the very least, reimburse the state board and local districts for the problems it’s screw-ups have caused.
Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Friday, Mar 10, 06 @ 8:18 am
The SJR also indicates there are two sides of the story:
- Wyma wasn’t hired until after Harcourt already had been selected and the contract was nearly finalized;
- Harcourt says that there were only 85 defective test booklets out of 1.2 million;
- The SJR points out this contract was let under the old State Board of Education, when Gidwitz was still on it, and Gidwitz apparently approved.
Gidwitz, BTW, does an embarrassing shuffle, trying to blame the Gov’s office when it was his State Board that approved it. I guess he’s only an education leader when it suits him, the rest of the time somebody else was in charge. Pathetic.
Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Friday, Mar 10, 06 @ 8:27 am
YDD: Something else is missing here. The contractor was in a bit of trouble over the contract and it was talked about being pulled from the company holding it. At that point Wyma was hired and guess what? All talk of pulling this contract ceased. Does anyone know if this company contributed to RGod and if so how much? I’m not saying they did donate, but would like to know if they did or not.
Comment by Paul Powell Friday, Mar 10, 06 @ 8:36 am
The funny thing is, no matter how much is written about him, nothing seems to stick to good old John.
He practically prints money in his basement….just look at his client list, and figure that even if each of them were paying him $1000 per month that he’s doing better that 99% of the population of IL.
And I highly doubt that he’s charging as little as $1K/month.
Comment by Reilly's Brother Friday, Mar 10, 06 @ 10:28 am
Everyone ran from George Ryan, but frankly, his political hacks were a lot more competent than Blagojevich’s.
Comment by VanillaMan Friday, Mar 10, 06 @ 4:08 pm